{"id":46736,"date":"2023-10-19T15:48:20","date_gmt":"2023-10-19T15:48:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thelandmark.com\/?p=46736"},"modified":"2023-10-19T15:48:20","modified_gmt":"2023-10-19T15:48:20","slug":"wrhs-football-falls-to-leominster-on-friday-the-13th","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/2023\/10\/19\/wrhs-football-falls-to-leominster-on-friday-the-13th\/","title":{"rendered":"WRHS football falls to Leominster on Friday the 13th"},"content":{"rendered":"
By John Orrell<\/em>
\nLandmark Correspondent<\/em><\/div>\n

HOLDEN \u2013 Simply call it araskavedekatriaphobia<\/em> (fear of Friday the 13th) or any cogent reason imaginable for letting a 25-7 lead slip away. That\u2019s what the football gods had in store for the Wachusett Regional High varsity football team when they squared off with visiting Leominster High last Friday. The Mountaineers (2-4) fell to the Blue Devils, 38-32, despite some last minute heroics that were simply too little, too late to avoid a mountain-size heartbreaker.<\/p>\n

The night opened up auspiciously with a pair of first quarter touchdowns for Wachusett. Ben Domineck hauled in a 12-yard toss from QB Dillon Harper for a touchdown and was followed minutes later with 6 more on the board when WR\/CB Cam McGravey took home an 18-yard toss from Harper to put the Mountaineers up, 13-0, at the end of one.<\/p>\n

Late in the first half, WR\/LB Ethan Blomquist appeared to have put things away for Wachusett when he connected with Harper for a 31-yard touchdown strike. Seconds later, he followed that up with a 19-yard interception to run up the score to 25-7 at the break. But just when the curtain appeared to close on the opening 24 minutes of play, Leominster struck for a 40-yard TD run to close the gap and light a spark for the Blue Devils.<\/p>\n

In the second half, it was all Leominster who went to work with surgical precision, putting four touchdowns on the board. The resulting scoring put the green and white down for the count, looking up, as it wasn\u2019t to be despite a late game effort that resulted in a 62-yard touchdown catch by McGravey. Wachusett had possession of the ball in the waning minutes, but Leominster\u2019s defense kept the green and white off the board.<\/p>\n

Wachusett next hosts perennial rival Algonquin Regional on Friday, Oct. 20, at 7 p.m. Look for a bounce- back and a hard week of practice under the guidance of head coach Mike Dubzinski.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey got two scores at the end of the second half,\u201d said WR\/DE Grayson Baker postgame. \u201cWe answered with one, and we were trying to get that second. We just couldn\u2019t get it. We have to go hard this week in practice, give it 100%, watch film on the other team and do the best we can.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to have a good week in practice, stay focused,\u201d echoed teammate WR\/LB Joe Raeke. \u201cWe have four hard working days in front of us, and we have to stay locked in all week. We might have a little damage to our confidence, but we can bounce back from this. I know we can.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the second half we came out a little bit flat,\u201d added Domineck. \u201cWe\u2019re going to get back in practice this week and work hard. We always do, and we\u2019ll be back next week. \u2018Gonk\u2019s\u2019 (Algonquin Regional nickname) always a good team. They have good offense and defense. We\u2019re going to prepare for them the best we can. We\u2019ll have a good week in practice, and we\u2019ll be back next week.\u201d<\/p>\n

Members of the 2023 Wachusett Regional High varsity football team include seniors Mitchell Donkor, Ben Domineck, Dillon Harper, Grayson Baker, Stone Lane, Ethan Blomquist, Brian Pupecki, Chris Smith, Brady Westerlind, Mahkye Anthony, Blaise Zsidisin, Sam Kostantin, Logan Quirk and Matthew Vigeant.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By John Orrell Landmark Correspondent HOLDEN \u2013 Simply call it araskavedekatriaphobia (fear of Friday the 13th) or any cogent reason imaginable for letting a 25-7 lead slip away. That\u2019s what the football gods had in store for the Wachusett Regional High varsity football team when they squared off with visiting Leominster High last Friday. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46738,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46736\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}